Singapore has confirmed 41 cases of locally transmitted Zika virus, mostly among foreign construction workers.
All but seven of those infected had fully recovered, the Health Ministry and the National Environment Agency said in a statement on Sunday. The seven remain in hospital.
On Saturday, authorities confirmed a 47-year-old Malaysian woman living in southeastern Singapore as the city-state’s first case of a local transmission of the virus, Reuters reported.
They said 124 people, primarily foreign construction workers, employed on a site in the same part of Singapore had been tested. That site has been ordered to halt work, and workers’ dormitories are being inspected. Around 78 people tested negative and 34 patients had fully recovered.
Zika virus, carried by some mosquitoes, has been linked in Brazil to more than 1,600 cases of microcephaly, where babies are born with small heads. Four Singaporean men developed symptoms of the virus in the past week and were hospitalized. None of the infected had traveled recently to Zika-affected areas, confirming the local transmission of Zika virus infection.
